NATION NETWORK

A New World is Coming

Much like with any home, there comes a time when you have to throw some paint on the walls, replace broken fixtures, pull up the carpet, Febreze the place and do whatever you can to upgrade your living space. Why am I talking about renovations on a sports website? Well… Because, today, I’m here to tell you about the Nation Network’s renovations that we’ve been working on.

The last time the look of our websites (only one website then) was updated was back in late 2008. In those days, Wanye dubbed the look you’ve known for the past eight+ years as Nation 2.0 and it was all the rage for a while but its time is winding down. On Tuesday, the Nation Network will be relaunching with a brand new look for all seven of our team sites.

If you’re reading this, you likely already know why we decided that it was time to do a few upgrades around here. Whether you’re coming to read about hockey or baseball, looking at our websites has been like taking a trip in a time machine. The look was stale, the functionality is limited, and we have way bigger dreams for the Nation Network than our current platform can provide.

For the Network writers that are reading this, I don’t even have to tell you guys about why we needed this. The current backend is like a black hole that is almost as likely to erase all of your pictures and mess up the formatting as it is to publish your article. For our authors, this move will give them the ability to be more creative and input more intricate graphics/tables/whatever into their articles. It’s a game changer.

STOP TALKING AND SHOW US ALREADY

Frankly, there are more new features than I’ll be able to show you in one article I wanted to touch on some of the big changes that are coming on Monday.

MORE CONTENT!

As you already know, our current sites only have room for five posts on the front page. Without even clicking the “more” button at the bottom of the page, each website will feature the 14 most recent articles right on the front page. In addition, you’ll also see relevant articles from other sites around the Network that may peak your interest.

STATS AND STANDINGS

You ever wonder how many goals/assists your favourite hockey warlord has? Of course you do. Starting Tuesday, you’ll be able to find all of that tasty info right on the sites themselves. Same goes for the standings. Want to know where your team is sitting in the wildcard? No problem. We’ll have that too. Gone are the days of opening up a new tab just to find out the basic numbers that you may be wondering about.

THREADED COMMENTS

Before I get started, to the TLN and BJN readers, I’m going to apologize that we’re changing the commenting system again. After relaunching, the Disqus commenting style will be replaced by a new threaded system that will keep the conversations organized in a similar fashion. For everyone else, our new commenting section will get rid of those long quoted rants that take up space and annoy everyone. If you want to respond to something someone says, you’ll be able to jump in right underneath and let them have it. Won’t it be nice to be able to respond to specific conversations without having to go on a seek and destroy mission to figure out where it started? Yeah, I thought so.

THE NEW SITES WILL BE 100% MOBILE FRIENDLY

I don’t know when the last time you tried to read an article on your phone was, but the days of pinching and zooming are nearly over. Once we relaunch, all of our team sites will be 100% mobile friendly which means you’ll be able to read, comment, trash people, and do all of the things you would want to be able to do from your phone.

VIDEO

One thing we’ll be putting a lot more focus on in the new year is video production and our new home will provide us more opportunities to do that. Whether it’s finding ways to make you guys laugh or presenting highlights in a different way, we’ll be working to get more moving pictures on your screens. Stay tuned for more Nation Network productions coming at you in the near future.

IT WAS TIME FOR AN UPGRADE

At the end of the day, our new platform is much more powerful than what we’ve been using for the past decade. Our goal was to make sure that our readers and authors have the best experience possible whether they’re reading or writing an article. Behind the scenes, we’ve talked about rebuilding the sites for years and now we’re only a few days away from it actually happening and I can’t wait for you guys to see it. This is big news for all of our team and we hope that these upgrades will make your experience at the Nation Network much more enjoyable.

On behalf of the Nation Network, I’m happy to be able to make this announcement and look forward to having you guys see the place and make yourselves at home.

I know the Nation Network has their fingers in a lot of pies already…. BUT~! What about taking Over or Starting a new “Hockey’s Future”(the online prospects resource)Could that Be in the cards for the future for TNN? I can’t imagine the work & personnel it would take keep something like that running? But I do miss being able to keep tabs on all the teams prospects and rankings in one spot. Oh… And I Know TNN Would Do It Right! That would be Awesome! Thanks! Had To Ask.

Well considering spring is only 380 hours away, a little spring cleaning is indeed a good thing. I strongly suggest you take a sample of the postings in all the different sites to get a feel of what the reader likes or dislikes. It is kind of marketing 101, you give what your customer market wants.

Similar to a ball player stepping out of the box for the 6th time in your typical 4 hour major league game, there is no problem with stepping out of the box. I also suggest that you don’t get locked into a dogma of thought. That this new philosophy is the holy grail in analysing a sport. Kind of look at it as a salad you are making. Use a variety of lettuces, herbs, other goodies from the garden. Spice it up.

One thing I’ve noticed and I commend you for basically keeping the trolls in check. Controversy is fun, some times a rhubarb breaks out with one person suggesting his mother wore army boots.

Although at times the author of a written piece might take a fair amount of criticism take it with a grain of salt unless the person steps over the boundary of decency and that point you punt him out of the site.

One other thought and it is this. All of us have a different level of knowledge about sports. Some of us have been around since Moses, doesn’t make us necessarily smart, others are novices to watching sports and posting in sports sites. Treat them with respect. You as the writer might think that the comment made by that person is utter rubbish. Instead of suggesting where you think the person’s comment is totally wrong, and instead leaving a comment that the individual’s comment is horse shit totally proves the mind level of that author. Yeah, yeah he is a tough guy, a know it all and what a shame not everyone thinks like me or dare has an au contraire opinion.

Good luck with your house cleaning and may I say I thoroughly enjoy the nation sites.

I’m a relatively new reader to the nations, add me to the list of folks (geezers??) who like the simple nostalgic feel of the site. I understand change is necessary sometimes, hopefully you guys don’t go crazy with the ads. I also found it mildly charming that there was no mobile version of the site. Anyway, at the end of the day I’m on board with whatever changes are necessary to continue allowing you guys to deliver quality content & analysis.

I e-mailed Wanye a few years ago and he mentioned the sites were going to be redesigned “soon.” While I commend the crew for your commitment to “sticking with the plan,” like the Oil have done, I think we’re all looking forward to the end of this website rebuild.

Im down with free speech, but an ignore option for trolls would be great. Im all for open discussion, but there are rare posters/ commenters that never add anything useful to a discussion, and in my opinion degrade the content because people engage with them. I would love to not see their posts, or replies.

I’m on the fence regarding abilities to post links or jpegs, or GIFs. That can screw up page load times. Some sites turn into lame “who is more clever with GIF creations?” competitions. Then again, some people are pretty clever.

The biggest problem is filtering out links to inappropriate sites and inappropriate images.